“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” - George W. Bush

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Remember “Game changer” or the “Red line”, the stern worried look on Obama’s face, on the way to a golf game or Netanyahu’s dark “Existential threat” pronouncements? The same talking points from FUKUS, McCain and all the usual suspects. It was all sarin gas all the time with conclusive proof it was done by the “Assad regime”

REMEMBER HOW IT MEANT IMMEDIATE ARM SHIPMENTS TO OUR AL QAEDA ALLIES, THE NOBLE SYRIAN REBELS FROM THE WORLD’S JIHADI CENTERS? ALL THE PRONOUNCEMENTS FROM THE NEOCON SLAMDUNKERS?

Samples taken at the Syrian town where chemical weapons were allegedly used indicate that it was rebels - not the Syrian army - behind the attack, Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin has said.

Russia has handed over the analyzed samples to the UN, he added.

“I have just passed the analysis of samples taken at the site of the chemical attack to the UN Secretary General (Ban Ki-moon),” Churkin said on Tuesday.

Evidence studied by Russian scientists indicates that a projectile carrying the deadly nerve agent sarin was most likely fired at Khan al-Assal by the rebels, Churkin pointed out.

“It was determined that on March 19 the rebels fired an unguided missile Bashair-3 at the town of Khan al-Assal, which has been under government control. The results of the analysis clearly show that the shell used in Khan al-Assal was not factory made and that it contained sarin,” he said.

Churkin added that the contents of the shell “didn’t contain chemical stabilizers in the toxic substance,” and therefore “is not a standard chemical charge.” The RDX - an explosive nitroamine commonly used for industrial and military applications - found in the warhead was not consistent with what the armed forces use.

According to Moscow, the manufacture of the ‘Bashair-3’ warheads started in February, and is the work of Bashair al-Nasr, a brigade with close ties to the Free Syrian Army.

Churkin stressed that unlike other reports which have been handed to the UN, the samples were taken by Russian experts at the scene, without any third party involvement.

More than 30 people died in the Khan al-Assal incident in the northern province of Aleppo in March. Damascus was the first to ask for the UN investigation, accusing opposition fighters of launching a chemical weapon attack. Syrian rebel groups denied the accusations, in turn blaming government forces.

However, the UN investigation has largely become stalled after a group of Western nations insisted on launching an inquiry into a separate case of alleged chemical weapons use in Homs in December 2012. The inquiry requires access to military objects, which Damascus has been unwilling to give.

The UN has also decided to exclude Russian and Chinese experts from the investigation team, with Syria protesting this decision.

So far, the UN commission of inquiry for Syria has not found any conclusive evidence proving that either side of the conflict used chemical weapons. This is despite several reports submitted by the US, UK and France, which claim to show that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces used such weapons.

Syria finds enough chemicals to ‘destroy the whole country’

The Syrian government invited chief UN chemical weapons investigator Ake Sellstrom and UN disarmament chief Angela Kane for talks in Damascus on Monday, announcing that a rebels-linked storage site containing piles of dangerous chemicals had been discovered.

“The Syrian authorities have discovered yesterday in the city of Banias 281 barrels filled with dangerous, hazardous chemical materials,” Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari said, adding that the chemicals were “capable of destroying a whole city, if not the whole country.”

The chemicals, which included monoethylene glycol and polyethylene glycol, were found in a storage site used by “armed terrorist groups,” Ja’afari explained. He said that Syria has started an investigation into the discovery.

The Syrian envoy expressed Damascus’ confidence that there will be “constructive negotiations with the Syrian officials in order to reach an agreement,” particularly in terms of “reference, mechanism, and time frame” of the UN mission.

Ja’afari added, however, that one should not “jump to the conclusion” that the Monday invitation means that Syria would consider allowing the UN team access to sites beyond Aleppo.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman, Martin Nesirky, reacted by calling the invitation “a move in the right direction,” but did not say whether UN investigators would accept it. The UN has been demanding that Sellstrom’s team be granted access across Syria “without further delay and without conditions,” ordering the Aleppo investigation not to begin until those demands were reached. al region in the northern Aleppo province, as Syria's government accused rebel forces of using chemical weapons for the first time. (AFP Photo / SANA)

‘No credible reporting that rebels used chemical weapons’?

Following Churkin’s announcement, both US and UK officials voiced their disbelief over any evidence suggesting that Syrian rebels used chemical weapons, stating they have yet been unable to see the whole report of Russia’s UN envoy.

The US has “yet to see any evidence that backs up the assertion that anybody besides the Syrian government has the ability to use chemical weapons, has used chemical weapons,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

When asked whether Washington had seen the Russian report, Carney replied that it had not.

The UK also voiced its skepticism regarding the report, stating that it didn’t believe the opposition could have obtained chemical weapons.

“We will examine whatever is presented to us, but to date we have seen no credible reporting of chemical weapons use by the Syrian opposition, or that the opposition have obtained chemical weapons,” BBC quoted a UK government spokesman as saying.

I have no idea about his veracity. But Vity has certainly 'fallen apart' physically, and he was once such a handsome young man. And brave too. I remember he was asked by someone, do you fear the retros, and Vity answered no, we will keep doing what we are doing.

All this happened long ago, in the days of Yeltsin, when Hamdoon, Quirk, UJack and I were in Moscow, working behind the scenes to help undermine the old guard. Quirk was magnificent then, before the real drinking began. Now he needs a drink even to properly appreciate a good joke. I believe it started with the Russian vodka....

As the Obama administration and the country debate the parameters for intervening in Syria, it is worth remembering that in the Balkans and in Iraq we have watched this movie before, and we almost certainly know how it ends. The Washington war lobby and the intervention industry set their sights on a small, dysfunctional, failed state wracked by long-term historical problems and internal ethnic and religious violence. The subsequent pattern and dynamic are repeatedly the same. In the foreign-policy salons of Washington and New York, international-affairs experts propose (between sips of cheap chardonnay) solutions to crises in countries they have never been to, inhabited by peoples they have never met, whose languages they don't understand and whose histories they don’t know. The demonization of the dictator begins, followed by the imposition of economic sanctions and arms embargoes.

When this isn’t enough, demands grow for more decisive action, such as arming the “good guys” and the establishment of no-fly zones and safe areas. Somewhere along the way a well-connected, media-savvy leader will be found and groomed to represent the good guys (It’s a safe bet that at this very moment someone in Washington is looking for the Syrian Ahmed Chalabi). Intelligence will then be cooked, and a frenzied media will demand even more decisive action, such as cruise-missile attacks and bombing campaigns; war-crimes indictments will have to be issued.

When even this doesn't work, the Washington war lobby will insist on an outright military invasion and ground campaign because by now credibility is at stake. Meanwhile, viable diplomatic alternatives and solutions will be dismissed. Finally, after tens of thousands are dead, hundreds of billions of dollars are spent and much of the country is destroyed, the Washington politicians, media hotshots, Hollywood celebrities and empathetic rock stars will lose interest in the country, just as surely as they lose interest in whatever nightclub or restaurant is in fashion for the season. Ultimately, the country left behind is in even worse shape than when we intervened.

This is a dynamic known for centuries. As the Quran (2:11–12) says, “When it is said to them ‘Do not make mischief in the land,’ they say ‘We are but peacemakers.’ Nay, of a surety they are the mischief makers, but they do not understand.” Or, as Tacitus described the Roman campaigns in Britain, “Brigands of the world, they create a desolation and call it peace.”

The Extraordinary High Cost of U.S. Foreign Policy Over the Last Two Decades (Treasure, Lives, Stature, and Opportunity Costs)

Now you are posting links that quote the Quran, which is really just another spelling for the notorious Koran, I do think it is the same book, different edition.

Have you no shame?The thoughts and cultural identity of the Islamic Arc reside in that book, and you dare quote massages from it that do not denigrate the Islamoids. Quotes that give justification to their natural mistrust of the motives for intervention in their culture by US interests?

That is almost seditious!

Next thing that'll happen, you'll be hauled off to the American Gulag and given forty lashes with a wet noodle. Then we will all nod, knowingly, in sequence.

Good luck, Q, you will be in our thoughts.

Scheduled for contemplation, right after I put the wood laminate flooring in the modern survivalist man cave, out in the big steel box that used to be a shipping container.

“I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being, first and foremost, and as such I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.”

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”

Former President George W. Bush waded ever so gently into the fierce debate in Washington over immigration reform, urging lawmakers to reach a "positive resolution" on the issue, and warning against disparaging immigrants.

"We can uphold our tradition of assimilating immigrants, and honoring our heritage of our nation built on the rule of law. But we have a problem. The laws governing the immigration system aren't working; the system is broken."

Speaking Wednesday morning at a naturalization ceremony for new citizens held at his presidential library, Bush refused to comment specifically on the legislative battle that has enrapt the Capitol and beguiled many of the former president's fellow Republicans. Advertise | AdChoices

But Bush, who sought similar legislation during his presidency that would have offered undocumented immigrants a pathway to U.S. citizenship, spoke warmly about the positive contributions of immigrants.

Q, being rather cosmopolitan, does know that ALL 'toads' are 'frogs', a technical scientific designation, while all frogs may not necessarily be toads, a fact not always known by some countrified rustics.

Socialist secular states ...Look at who the residents of Israel find equivalency with, now ...

World corruption survey: Most Israelis believe government agencies influenced by ulterior motives

Some 73 percent of Israelis believe state agencies bow to outside pressure; 12 percent of Israelis have reportedly bribed a government agency in the past year, according to the survey.

Nearly three quarters of Israelis believe their government agencies are corrupt and bow to outside pressure, according to a survey conducted by the NGO Transparency International. The only government with a worse public perception in this regard is Greece, the survey shows. ...

Though the Federals may have used a preponderance of force, when it was not really needed.

Then, again, even the Boy Scouts celebrate preparedness.

Adam Vs. The Man Studios, the media operation headed by gun rights activist Adam Kokesh, released a statement Wednesday morning claiming his arrest at his northern Virginia home Tuesday night on charges related to gun and drug violations was preceded by an "aggressive" police raid.

The statement said U.S. Parks Police and local Herndon, Va. police came to Kokesh's home with "numerous police vehicles, including a light armored vehicle and two low-flying helicopters" and "more than 20 armored SWAT team members ... as well as a number of detectives, and plainclothes officers."

According to the Washington Post, the search warrant on Kokesh's home was served by the U.S. Parks Police, which confirmed last week it was investigating Kokesh for a video that he said showed him loading a shotgun in Washington, D.C.'s Freedom Plaza. The parks police oversees the plaza, and local laws in Washington, D.C. prohibit the open carrying of firearms and the possession of guns not registered in the district. Kokesh has described the video as a deliberate act of civil disobedience. The parks police did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TPM.

Roberto Pannunzi, compared to the late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar by Colombian authorities, was caught in a Bogota shopping centre carrying a false Venezuelan identity card, the Defense Ministry announced on Twitter.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) worked with Colombian police to find and arrest Pannunzi, the ministry said.

Pannunzi is linked to the powerful Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, a crime syndicate closely associated with Colombian drug cartels. Authorities accuse him of importing two tons of cocaine into Europe every month.

>>>>JERUSALEM, Israel -- From the West Coast of Africa to the deserts of Sinai, Bedouin tribes are conducting a human trafficking trade on a massive scale.

It's no secret. The trade reaps millions of dollars and deals with human misery. It could be stopped but so far no one has dared.

"By that time I had lost sense (sensation) in both my hands," an Eritrean torture victim told CBN News. "It was a result of the accumulated torture but mainly because (both) of my wrists were tied up so tightly, (and I was) hanged up from the ceiling for three days, the blood was cut off from my hands and the flesh started to literally drip from my hands."

Torture in the Sinai

This man is just one victim of this widespread modern-day slavery, kidnapping, and torture trade in the Sinai desert. There are many pictures and videos of this horrible practice on the Internet.

For this story, this Christian man from the African country of Eritrea is going by "Philip," but that's not his real name. CBN News covered his identity for his protection.

"In some cases, we were tortured simply because we were Christians," he told us, his chest trembling slightly as he spoke.

"Sinai was always a place for human smuggling, but since around two years ago -- even a bit more -- it started also to be a place of human torture," Shahar Shoham, director of Physicians for Human Rights, told CBN News.

Shorham has documented more than 1,300 cases of torture in the Sinai. Those survivors, like Philip, made it to Israel. But most of the cases of torture are not documented.

"They torture them in horrible methods, like hanging upside down from the ceiling, like using electric shocks, like burning them on their bodies," Shorham said.<<<<

Where do these people go if they make it out alive? To that horrid apartheid State of Israel, of course.

The House Republican leadership is reaching out to top House Democrats to assess their support for a piecemeal approach to immigration reform, according to sources involved in the discussions.

The House’s immigration game plan is to pass individual bills rather than take the comprehensive approach advocated by the Senate. Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) team isn’t trying to cut a deal with Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), these aides caution. But deeply-divided Republicans want to get a read on what members of the minority party would back when immigration reform comes to the floor.

The legislation under discussion between Republicans and Democrats includes bills reworking the employment verification system and legislation to toughen border security, according to sources both involved in and familiar with the talks. In strategy sessions and planning meetings, Republicans have said that support for immigration reform is soft among GOP lawmakers — and leadership is skeptical that there is backing for anything more drastic than border security and E-verify.

The most important person during the bank earnings conference calls that kick off this Friday with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. will be a person not even in the rooms: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

A swift, steep rise in long-term interest rates since early May, stoked by comments from the Fed chairman, is presenting challenges and opportunities for the largest U.S. banks as they struggle to overcome lackluster loan demand, a weak economy and a slew of new regulations that are crimping profits.

On this day in 1940, 120 German bombers and fighters attacked a British shipping convoy in the English Channel, the first conflict of the Battle of Britain, which would last the next three and a half months. It would be the first major conflict fought entirely with air forces, and would end with a stinging defeat for the Germans.

In another milestone in robotic warfare, the Navy on Wednesday landed a fighter-size, computer-controlled drone on an aircraft carrier.

The experimental X-47B jet took off from Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland and made its historic touchdown aboard the USS George H.W. Bush, off the coast of Virginia. As with conventional carrier landings — one of the most difficult tasks for a pilot — the drone deployed a tailhook that snagged an arresting wire, bringing the bat-wing plane to a quick stop on the flight deck.

"Your grandchildren and great grandchildren and mine will be reading about this historic event in their history books. This is not trivial, nor is it something that came lightly," said Rear Adm. Mat Winter, the executive officer for unmanned aviation and strike weapons programs.

In May, an X-47B, one of two built by Northrop Grumman, also made history when it was launched from the Bush about a hundred miles off the Eastern Shore. Four days later, the plane performed touch-and-go landings before returning to base. Its maiden flight, from the Patuxent River, was in February 2011.

The Navy says the X-47B is guided by precision satellite navigation, a highly secure network connection and advanced flight software.

The tailless, single-engine jet resembles a small B-2 bomber but does not have stealth capabilities. Intended for high-altitude surveillance — it can fly at more than 40,000 feet — the X-47B can also be equipped with weapons. The Navy also plans to test in-flight refueling, which would significantly boost its range of more than 2,100 nautical miles.

The X-47B is a big cousin to the remotely piloted Predator, which has been used to conduct deadly strikes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. It weighs 14,000 pounds, has a wingspan of 62 feet and can fly at high-subsonic speed. The turbo-prop Predator weighs in at 1,100 pounds, has 49-foot wingspan and a maximum range of 675 miles.

It's a murder trial involving nearly a half-dozen mistresses, a botched investigation at a troubled police department and a missing pickup truck at the heart of the case.

...

The case also has threatened to further tarnish the reputation of the beleaguered Albuquerque Police Department, which already is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department over a series of police shootings. The trial included allegations that officers at the scene removed and even flushed key evidence down the toilet.

I am nearly ready to believe that in this Zimmerman case the prosecution was intentionally trying to throw it in Zimmerman's favor, they believing he is innocent, but needing a show trial to prevent rioting in the streets. It's in the jury' hand now.

Not everyone agrees. Saying that CPR is ineffective is "the wrong attitude" and a "self-fulfilling prophecy," said Dr. Michael Sayre, former chairman of the American Heart Association's Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee.

...

In some cities that have less CPR training, the survival rate is indeed low, Sayre says. But in other metropolitan areas with strong training programs and quick EMS response times, half or more victims survive.

Sayre suggests teaching CPR in schools nationwide starting in seventh grade, as well as increasing access to automated external defibrillators, portable machines that shock the heart to get it to "reboot." Using an AED, according to Sayre, increases the probability of survival to 80%.

Is the Obama administration at least partially responsible for turning the George Zimmerman trial into such a huge national spectacle? Judicial Watch has obtained documents which prove that the Community Relations Service, a division of the Department of Justice, was sent to Sanford, Florida in late March 2012 “to help organize and manage rallies and protests against George Zimmerman“.

...

JW administratively appealed the request on June 5, 2012, and received 222 pages more on March 6, 2013. According to the documents:

March 25 – 27, 2012, CRS spent $674.14 upon being “deployed to Sanford, FL, to work marches, demonstrations, and rallies related to the shooting and death of an African-American teen by a neighborhood watch captain.”

March 25 – 28, 2012, CRS spent $1,142.84 “in Sanford, FL to work marches, demonstrations, and rallies related to the shooting and death of an African-American teen by a neighborhood watch captain.

March 30 – April 1, 2012, CRS spent $892.55 in Sanford, FL “to provide support for protest deployment in Florida.”

...

Apparently, the Department of Justice was involved in setting up meetings between the NAACP and local officials, and the Department of Justice even arranged police escorts for protesters…

On April 15, 2012, during the height of the protests, the Orlando Sentinel reported, “They [the CRS] helped set up a meeting between the local NAACP and elected officials that led to the temporary resignation of police Chief Bill Lee according to Turner Clayton, Seminole County chapter president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.” The paper quoted the Rev. Valarie Houston, pastor of Allen Chapel AME Church, a focal point for protestors, as saying “They were there for us,” after a March 20 meeting with CRS agents.

Fifty-five percent of registered American voters consider former NSA contractor Edward Snowden to be a whistleblower, and only 34 percent call him a traitor - despite US lawmakers labeling him as such.

A poll conducted by Quinnipiac University found that the majority of Americans perceive Snowden as a man who exposed the inappropriate surveillance tactics of the US government - not as a man who betrayed his duty.

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The president’s poll numbers are no longer sagging. They’re just plain down.

Looking at the Gallup poll’s daily tracking trend line of President Obama’s job approval, the president has been at 45 or 46 percent since the end of last month.

More importantly, he has been upside-down, with higher disapproval than approval, for six of the past eight tracks. Let’s put those numbers into context.

At no time in the first five months of the year was Obama upside-down for multiple days in a week. And during the same period, never did Obama’s approval drop to 45 percent. But in June, it tested that bottom in five daily tracks.

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And how is the US Conga Line doing?

A recent Gallup poll shows Americans’ collective confidence in its legislative body continuing to dwindle. Out of a group of 16 institutions, the poll found Americans have faith in Congress the least–for the fourth year in a row. And there’s more bad news: Congress got a 10% vote of confidence, down three points from 2012.

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.